Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc. Business Information, Profile, and History

Related information about Elvis Presley

Popular singer and film actor, born in Tupelo, Mississippi, USA. An only child (a twin brother was stillborn), he was raised in a religious home. As a boy he sang with his local Assembly of God church choir, which emulated the style of African-American psalm singing. At age 10 he won a school singing contest and taught himself the rudiments of the guitar (though he never really could read music). In 1948 he moved with his family to Memphis, TN, where he graduated from high school (1953) and began working as a truck driver and studying at night classes to be an electrician. Later that year he made a private recording for his mother at the Memphis Sound Studio, where he attracted the attention of proprietor Sam Phillips (1923–2003), who also operated Sun Records, a fledgling blues label. In July 1954 Phillips had Presley record his first singles, ‘That's All Right, Mama’ and ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’, a synthesis of rhythm-and-blues and country-and-western that was for a time described as ‘rockabilly’. The record made an immediate impression on local listeners, who were bewildered to learn that Presley was white, but their enthusiasm for his style of dress, bodily movements, and music signalled the beginnings of rock 'n' roll.

He toured the South as the Hillbilly Cat and performed on a Shreveport, LA radio station, and after releasing his first national hit on Sun Records, he moved to RCA Records under the tutelage of his ambitious personal manager, ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker. His first national television appearance was actually in 1955 on Jackie Gleason's Stage Show, but it was his 1956 appearance on Ed Sullivan's Talk of the Town that made him a national sensation: his pelvic gyrations were considered so scandalous that he was shown only from the waist up. That same year he released his first million-selling single, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and starred in Love Me Tender, the first of 33 relatively bland films he eventually made. He was forced to interrupt his career while serving in the US Army (1958–60), but he returned to his recording and film careers with undimmed success and solidified what became virtually an industry.

He scored his last chart-topping single in 1969, but in 1973 his television special, ‘Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii’ was broadcast to a potential worldwide audience of over a billion people, and he carved out a new career as a flashy nightclub performer even as he broadened his repertoire to include traditional and religious songs. In 1973, following his divorce from his wife Priscilla Presley, he became increasingly drug-dependent and overweight, and he spent his last years living reclusively at his Memphis home, Graceland. His death at age 42 shocked his many admirers, who have never given up on the music, mementoes, and memory of the man they regard as ‘the King of rock 'n' roll’. A remix of an earlier song ‘A Little Less Conversation’ topped the UK charts in 2002, giving Elvis his 18th number one hit in Britain. He was inducted into the inaugural UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. In January 2005, ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was re-released to commemorate what would have been his 70th birthday and topped the UK charts. Later the same month his single ‘One Night’ made history by becoming the 1000th UK number one.

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Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), often known simply as Elvis and also called "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" or simply "The King", was an American singer and actor.

Presley started as a singer of rockabilly, singing many songs from rhythm and blues (R&B), gospel and country. He was the most commercially successful singer of rock and roll, but he also had huge success with ballads, country, gospel, blues, pop, folk and even semi-operatic standards. During the late 1960's and through a large portion of the 1970's, Presley re-emerged as a live performer of old and new hit songs, both on tour and in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he was known for his on-stage highly energetic performances both vocally and physically, his sartorial jump-suits and capes adding to the drama. -->Presley was born on January 8, 1935 at around 4:13 a.m. in a two-room shotgun house in East Tupelo, Mississippi to Vernon Elvis Presley, a truck driver, and Gladys Love Smith, a sewing machine operator. His twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, was stillborn, thus leaving him to grow up as an only child. a 23 March 2004 BBC story that cites Allan Morrison, the author of the then-unpublished book The Presley Prophecy.,Native American, Irish, Jewish and German roots. Guralnick, p.149 He was teased by his fellow classmates who threw "things at him - rotten fruit and stuff - because he was different, because he was quiet and he stuttered and he was a mama's boy."Guralnick, p.36, referring to an account by singer Barbara Pittman and Patrick Humphries, Elvis The #1 Hits: The Secret History of the Classics, p.117.

In 1938, when Presley was three years old, his father was convicted of forgery. And she bought him his first guitar, in lieu of a bike and rifle, for $12.75.

In 1946 Presley started at a new school, Milam, which went from grades 5 through 9, but in 1948 the family left Tupelo, moving 110 miles northwest to Memphis, Tennessee. At this time, he was very much influenced by the Memphis blues music and the gospel sung at his church.

Presley entered Humes High School in Memphis taking up work at the school library and after school at Loew's State Theatre. In 1951 he enrolled in the school's ROTC unit, tried unsuccessfully to qualify for the high school football team (supposedly cut from the team by the coach for not trimming his sideburns and ducktail), spending his spare time around the African-American section of Memphis, especially on Beale Street. Over the next year, Vernon's brother Johnny Smith and Assembly of God pastor Frank Smith gave him basic guitar lessons.

Some years later, in Memphis, Tennessee, the young Presley "spent much of his spare time hanging around the black section of town, especially on Beale Street, where bluesmen like Furry Lewis and B.B. But it was a place where young Presley could hear black music.

The opening chapter of Peter Guralnick's book Last Train To Memphis www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316332259 deals with musical influence coming from birth exclusively through his family's attendance at the Assembly of God, a Pentecostal Holiness church. Rolling Stone biography on Elvis Presley www.rollingstone.com/artists/elvispresley/biography The United States government mandatory personal examination of Presley as part of the approval process to make his Graceland home a National Historic Landmark wrote that Presley "clearly embraced African American music and culture and did so at a pivotal point of cultural change in American history" but that " Gospel music was his primary musical influence." The U.S. government historian stated that "In the early years of the twentieth century, the evangelical Pentecostal movement with its "vibrant worship style" became extremely popular with working-class Christians, black and white." The church services in which the Presley family participated was where people "jumped, shouted, danced, and fell out for Jesus, because, in a word, they acted "crazy, " they became a national laughingstock, the Holy Rollers of fable and cliché." According to the study, the family's move to Memphis expanded his musical horizons when he began to attend Sunday services at the East Trigg Baptist Church.United States Department of the Interior re Graceland National Historic Landmark Nomination report prepared by Jody Cook, Architectural Historian with detailed references:

Sun recordings

On July 18, 1953 Presley paid $3.25 to record the first of two double-sided demos acetates at Sun Studios, "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin", which were popular ballads at the time. Presley returned to Sun Studios (706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee) on January 4, 1954.

Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, who had already recorded bluesmen such as Howlin' Wolf, James Cotton, B.B. King, Little Milton and Junior Parker www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic/pbs_arm_saa_elvispresley.html, was looking for "a white man with a Negro sound and the Negro feel," with whom he "could make a billion dollars." Bertrand, Race, Rock, and Elvis, p.27.

Phillips and assistant Marion Keisker heard the Presley discs and called him on June 26, 1954 to fill in for a missing ballad singer. Although that session was not productive, Phillips put Presley together with local musicians Scotty Moore and Bill Black to see what might develop. During a rehearsal break on July 5, 1954, Presley began singing a blues song written by Arthur Crudup called "That's All Right". Phillips liked the resulting record and on July 19, 1954 he released it as a 78-rpm single backed with Presley's hopped-up version of Bill Monroe's bluegrass song "Blue Moon of Kentucky". Memphis radio station WHBQ began playing it two days later, the record became a local hit and Presley began a regular touring schedule hoping to expand his fame beyond Tennessee.

However, Sam Phillips had difficulty persuading Southern white disc jockeys to play Presley's first recordings. The only place that played his records at first were in the Negro sections of Chicago and Detroit and in California. Soon, demand by white teenagers that their local radio stations play his music overcame much of that resistance and as Rolling Stone magazine wrote years later in Presley's biography: "Overnight, it seemed, "race music," as the music industry had labeled the work of black artists, became a thing of the past, as did the pejorative "hillbilly" music. www.rollingstone.com/artists/elvispresley/biography Still, throughout 1955 and even well into 1956 when he had become a national phenomenon, Presley had to deal with an entrenched racism of die-hard segregationists and their continued labeling of his sound and style as vulgar "nigger music". Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, p.426.

Country music star Hank Snow arranged to have Presley perform at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry and his performance was well received. Nonetheless, one of the show's executives was not impressed and hinted that Presley should give up his music.

Presley's second single, "Good Rockin' Tonight", with "I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine" on the B-side, was released on September 25, 1954. On October 16, 1954, he made his first appearance on Louisiana Hayride, a radio broadcast of live country music in Shreveport, Louisiana, and was a hit with the large audience.

National exposure began on January 28, 1956, when Presley, Moore, Black and drummer D.J.

Presley and his manager "Colonel" Tom Parker

On August 15, 1955, Presley was signed by "Hank Snow Attractions", a management company jointly owned by singer Hank Snow and "Colonel" Tom Parker. Shortly thereafter, "Colonel" Parker took full control and recognizing the limitations of Sun Studios, negotiated a deal with RCA Victor Records to acquire Presley's Sun contract for $35,000 on November 21, 1955. That night, Allen had for the first time beaten The Ed Sullivan Show in the Sunday night ratings, prompting Sullivan (CBS) to book Presley for three appearances: September 9, and October 28, 1956 as well as January 6, 1957, for an unprecedented fee of $50,000.

Parker eventually negotiated a multi-picture seven-year contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer that shifted Presley's focus from music to films. Presley was praised by all his directors, including the highly respected Michael Curtiz, as unfailingly polite and extremely hardworking.

Presley began his movie career with Love Me Tender (opened on November 15, 1956). A detailed biography of Parker was written by Alanna Nash and published in 2003.

Cultural impact

Even in the 1950s era of blantant racism, Presley would publicly cite his debt to African American music, pointing to artists such as B. King, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Jackie Wilson, Ivory Joe Hunter, and Fats Domino. The reporter who conducted Presley's first interview in New York City in 1956 noted that he named blues singers who "obviously meant a lot to him. Later that year in Charlotte, North Carolina, Presley was quoted as saying: "The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I?m doin' now, man, for more years than I know. "

Little Richard said of Presley: "He was an integrator. But after Presley purchased the music of African American Otis Blackwell and had his "Gladys Music" company hire talented black songwriter Claude Demetrius, the industry underwent a dramatic change. In the spring of 1957 Presley invited African American performer Ivory Joe Hunter to visit Graceland and the two spent the day together, singing "I Almost Lost My Mind" and other songs. In his scholarly work Race, Rock, and Elvis (University of Illinois Press website www.press.uillinois.edu/s05/bertrand.html), Tennessee State University professor Michael T. "However much Elvis may have 'borrowed' from black blues performers (e.g., 'Big Boy' Crudup, 'Big Mama' Thornton), he borrowed no less from white country stars (e.g., Ernest Tubb, Bill Monroe) and white pop singers (e.g., Mario Lanza, Dean Martin)," and most of his borrowings came from the church;

"A danger to American culture"

By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/music/elvis.html and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers. The Roman Catholic Church denounced him in its weekly magazine in an article headlined "Beware Elvis Presley." www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/music/elvis.html

In an interview with PBS television social historian Eric Lott said, "all the citizens' councils in the South called Elvis 'nigger music' and were terribly afraid that Elvis, white as he was, being ambiguously raced just by being working-class, was going to corrupt the youth of America." www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/foster/sfeature/sf_minstrelsy_10.html Robert Kaiser says he was the first who gave the people "a music that hit them where they lived, deep in their emotions, yes, even below their belts. He arouses things in them that shouldn't be aroused.' "Priscilla Presley, Elvis and Me, p.8.

According to rhythm and blues artist Hank Ballard, "In white society, the movement of the butt, the shaking of the leg, all that was considered obscene. Many of Presley's records were condemned as wicked by Pentecostal preachers, warning congregations to keep heathen rock and roll music out of their homes and away from their children's ears (especially the music of "that backslidden Pentecostal pup.") However, the economic power of Presley's fans became evident when they tuned in alternative radio stations playing his records. In an era when radio stations were shifting to an all-music format, in reaction to competition from television, profit-conscious radio station owners learned quickly when sponsors bought more advertising time on new all "rock and roll" stations, some of which reached enormous markets at night with clear channel signals from AM broadcasts.

In August, 1956 in Jacksonville, Florida a local Juvenile Court judge called Presley a "savage" and threatened to arrest him if he shook his body while performing at Jacksonville's Florida Theatre, justifying the restrictions by saying his music was undermining the youth of America. A PBS documentary described Presley as "an American music giant of the 20th century who singlehandedly changed the course of music and culture in the mid-1950s.""Elvis Presley": a page at pbs.org with a single paragraph, attributed to palmpictures.com. His recordings, dance moves, attitude and clothing came to be seen as embodiments of rock and roll. His music was heavily influenced by African-American blues, Christian gospel, and Southern country.

Presley sang both hard driving rockabilly, rock and roll dance songs and ballads, laying a commercial foundation upon which other rock musicians would build their careers. African-American performers like Little Richard and Chuck Berry came to national prominence after Presley's acceptance among mass audiences of white teenagers. Singers like Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and others immediately followed in his wake. During the 1940s bobby soxers had idolized Frank Sinatra, but the buyers of his records were mostly between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. Meanwhile American teenagers began buying newly available portable transistor radios Rich Gordon, "How Transistor Radios and Web (and Newspapers and Hi-Fi radio) are Alike", "Reprinted, with permission, from The Cole Papers, June 22, 2005." and listened to rock 'n' roll on them (helping to propel that fledgling industry from an estimated 100,000 units sold in 1955 to 5,000,000 units by the end of 1958). Half a century later, historian Ian Brailsford (University of Auckland, New Zealand) commented, "The phenomenal success of Elvis Presley in 1956 convinced many doubters of the financial opportunities existing in the youth market."Ian Brailsford, "History repeating itself: Were postwar American teenagers ripe for harvest?" (NB Microsoft Word format): transcript of a paper delivered at "Youth Marketing Reaches Forty", 17 May 2001.

Military service

On December 20 1957, at the peak of his career, Presley received his draft board notice for his mandatory service in the United States Army. Fortunately, the Memphis Draft Board granted Wallis and Colonel Parker a deferment until March 20 so Presley could complete his film project.Elvis in the Army

While serving in Germany, Presley met his wife-to-be - the then 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu; and Walter Alden, the father of Presley's fiancee Ginger Alden who inducted Presley into the Army. Presley returned to the United States on March 2, 1960, and was honorably discharged on March 5.www.army.mil/CMH/faq/elvis.htm.

After serving his duty in the military, he became more mature and lost his raw and rebellious edge. Although "he was definitely not the most talented actor around."Leo Verswijver, Movies Were Always Magical: Interviews with 19 Actors, Directors, and Producers from the Hollywood of the 1930s through the 1950s (2002), p.129., he "became a film genre of his own."Tom Lisanti, Fantasy Femmes of 60's Cinema: Interviews with 20 Actresses from Biker, Beach, and Elvis Movies (2000), p.18. Pop film staples of the early sixties, such as the Presley musicals and the AlP beach movies were mainly produced for a teenage audience and called by film critics a "pantheon of bad taste"Andrew Caine, Interpreting Rock Movies: The Pop Film and Its Critics in Britain, p. vii Altogether, Presley had made 27 movies during the 1960s, "which had grossed about $130 million, and he had sold a hundred million records, which had made $150 million."Magdalena Alagna, Elvis Presley (2002)

1968 comeback

Presley's star had faded slightly over the 1960s as he made his movies and America was struck by changing styles and tastes after the "British Invasion" spearheaded by the Beatles. This lead to a triumphant televised performance later dubbed the '68 Comeback Special, aired on the NBC television network on December 3, 1968 and released as an album by RCA. In a special that saw him return to his rock and roll roots, Rolling Stone magazine called it "a performance of emotional grandeur and historical resonance". www.rollingstone.com/artists/elvispresley/biography

The comeback of 1968 was followed by a 1969 return to live performances, first in Las Vegas and then across the United States.

The final years

After seven years off the top of the charts, Presley's song "Suspicious Minds" hit number one on the Billboard music charts on November 1, 1969.This was the last time any song by Presley reached number one on the Hot 100, although "Burning Love" reached two in September 1972, and "A Little Less Conversation" topped the Hot Singles Sales chart in 2002. He also reached number one on charts elsewhere: "In the Ghetto" did so in West Germany in 1969 and "The Wonder of You" did so in the UK in 1970.

The "Aloha from Hawaii" concert in January 1973 was the first of its kind to be broadcast worldwide via satellite and was seen by at least one billion viewers worldwide. He was the first artist to have four shows in a row sold to capacity crowds at New York's Madison Square Garden.

From 1971 to his death in 1977 Presley employed the Stamps Quartet, a gospel group, for his backup vocals. Although some critics say that the singer travestied, commercialized and soft-soaped gospel "to the point where it became nauseating."Albert Goldman, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, p.187., twenty-four years after his death, the Gospel Music Association inducted him into its Gospel Music Hall of Fame (2001). He made his last live concert appearance in Indianapolis at the Market Square Arena on June 26, 1977.

Death and burial

On August 16, 1977, at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, Presley was found lying on the floor of his bedroom's bathroom by his fiancee, Ginger Alden, who had been asleep. Presley was 42 years old.

At a press conference following his death, one of the medical examiners declared that he had died of a heart attack. Presley's father Vernon died of heart failure two years after his son, at age 63.

Rolling Stone magazine devoted an entire issue to Presley (RS 248) and his funeral was a national media event. www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/music/elvis.html Hundreds of thousands of Presley fans, the press, and celebrities lined the street to witness Presley's funeral and Jackie Kahane gave the eulogy.

Presley was originally buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis next to his mother. After an attempted theft of the body, his remains and his mother's remains were moved to Graceland to the "meditation gardens."

Following Presley's death in 1977, US President Jimmy Carter said, "Elvis Presley's death deprives our country of a part of itself.

Controversy surrounding death

In her 1987 book Elvis and Kathy, friend and backup vocalist Kathy Westmoreland wrote "Everyone knew he was sick, that each public appearance brought him to the point of exhaustion."

According to Peter Guralnick's book, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (1999), "drug use was heavily implicated in this unanticipated death of a middle-aged man with no known history of heart disease...no one ruled out the possibility of anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills he had gotten from his dentist, to which he was known to have had a mild allergy of long standing...There was little disagreement in fact between the two principal laboratory reports and analyses filed two months later, with each stating a strong belief that the primary cause of death was polypharmacy, and the BioScience Laboratories report...indicating the detection of fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity."

In his book, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, Albert Goldman even went as far as to suggest that Presley committed suicide by overdosing on a stash of drugs that he stockpiled. David Stanley, Presley's stepbrother, who was at Graceland the day Presley died, is alleged to have removed the needles and drug packets near Presley's body before the paramedics arrived, suggesting that he did not want to see Presley's name tarred with the brush of suicide.

On the other hand, some of his closest family members, friends, band members, and background singers have long disputed stories concerning Presley's alleged prescription drug abuse and "self-destructive" lifestyle. For instance, Vernon Presley, Kathy Westmoreland, Charlie Hodge, and J.D. These health problems included glaucoma, chronic insomnia, and perhaps even bone cancer. www.nixonfoundation.org/index.php?src=directory&view=products&category=The%20Day%20Nixon%20Met%20Elvis

Presley told the President he was a huge admirer of everything he was doing, and asked to be made a "Federal Agent at Large" in order to help get the country off drugs.

Presley also denounced The Beatles to Nixon, describing some of their left-wing political statements as "very anti-American." While still a rising star, Presley also had a relationship with June Juanico.

Anita Wood, another girl whom Gladys Presley hoped he would eventually marry, was with Presley as he rose to superstardom, served in the US military and returned home in 1960. Wood lived at Graceland for a time but moved out after confronting him over Priscilla Beaulieu. They were married on May 1, 1967 in Las Vegas, Nevada and daughter Lisa Marie was born nine months later on February 1, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. After pioneer band leader Bill Haley spawned interest in rock and roll in Western Europe, Presley's records triggered a wide shift in tastes with effects lasting many decades. By 1958 Cliff Richard, the so-called "British Elvis", was rising to prominence in the UK, and in France Johnny Hallyday, known as the "Elvis of France", became a rock and roll idol singing in French, soon to be followed by others like Claude François and, in Italy, by Adriano Celentano and Bobby Solo, all of whom were heavily influenced by Presley's early style. Teenagers around the world copied his "ducktail" hair style. "While some of the impersonators perform a whole range of Presley music, the raw 1950s Elvis and the kitschy 1970s Elvis are the favorites."Harry Stecopoulos and Michael Uebel, Race and the Subject of Masculinities (Duke University Press, 1997), p.198.

Among his many accomplishments, Presley is only one of four artists (Roy Orbison, Guns N' Roses and Nelly being the others) to ever have two top five albums on the charts simultaneously.

He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986), the Country Music Hall of Fame (1998), and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (2001).

In 1993, Presley's image appeared on a United States postage stamp.

Upon announcing that Presley's home, the Graceland Mansion, was being designated as a National Historic Landmark, U.S Interior Secretary Gale Norton noted on 27 March, 2006, that ?It didn?t take Americans and the rest of the world long to discover Elvis Presley;

Presley in the 21st century

Interest in Presley's recordings returned during the buildup to the 2002 World Cup, when Nike used a Junkie XL remixed version of his "A Little Less Conversation" (credited as "Elvis Vs JXL") as the background music to a series of TV commercials featuring international soccer stars. The remix hit number one in over 20 countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia.It was also his first top 10 hit in the UK for nearly 22 years, and his first number one there for nearly 25 years. It topped Billboard's Hot Singles Sales chart (physical singles - legal downloads were not around at the time) but only reached #50 on the Hot 100. At about the same time, a compilation of Presley's US and UK Number 1 hits, Elv1s: 30, was being prepared for release. A re-release from it, "Burning Love" (not a remix), also made the Australian top 40 later in the year.

Presley's renewed fame continued with another remix in 2003 (this time by Paul Oakenfold) of "Rubberneckin'", which made the top three in Australia and top five in the UK. The second, "Jailhouse Rock", was the number one in the first chart of 2005, and "One Night"/"I Got Stung", the third in the series, replaced it on the January 16 chart (and thus becoming the 1000th UK number one entry).

All of these have reached top five in the official charts.Three number ones, eight number twos, four number threes, one number four, and one number five. These re-releases have made Presley the only artist so far to spend at least 1000 weeks in the British top 40.On December 9, 2005, the Book of British Hit Singles & Albums unveiled its annual list of the Top 100 Most Successful Acts of all time, based on the total number of weeks each recording artist has spent on the official UK Singles and Albums charts. Still in the album category, his longevity record boasts an almost fifty year gap between his first, and last hit album.

In total, he has spent 2,574 weeks in both the UK singles and album charts, way ahead of his closest competitors, namely Cliff Richard (1,982), Queen (1,755), the Beatles (1,749), and Madonna (1,660).

CBS recently aired a TV miniseries, Elvis starring Irish actor Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Presley.

Shortly after taking over the management of all things Elvis from the Elvis Presley Estate (which retained a 15% stake in the new company, while keeping Graceland and the bulk of the possessions found therein), Robert Sillerman's CKX company produced a DVD and CD featuring Presley (titled "Elvis by the Presleys"), as well as an accompanying two-hour documentary broadcast on Viacom's CBS Network, which alone generated $5.5 million.

A channel on the Sirius Satellite Radio subscriber service is devoted to the life and music of Presley, with all broadcasts originating from Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee.

In a list citeneeded of the greatest English language singers of the 20th century, as compiled by BBC Radio, Presley was ranked second. The poll was topped by Frank Sinatra, with Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald also in the top ten.

In July of 2005, Presley edged out Oprah Winfrey to be named the Greatest Entertainer in American history in the Greatest American election conducted by the Discovery Channel and America Online.

In mid October of 2005, Variety named the top 100 entertainment icons of the 20th century, with Presley landing on the top ten, along with the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball, Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Chaplin, James Dean and Mickey Mouse.

A week later, Forbes magazine named Presley, for the fifth straight year, the top-earning dead celebrity, grossing US$45 million for the Presley estate during the period from October of 2004, to October 2005. This claim is allegedly backed up by thousands of so-called Elvis sightings that have occurred in the years since his death.The Elvis Presley Online Store, "Is Elvis alive or dead?" Critics of the notion state that a number of Presley impersonators can easily be mistaken for Presley and that the urban legend is merely the result of fans not wanting to accept his death.

Two main reasons are given in support of the belief that Presley faked his death:

• On his grave, his middle name Aron is misspelled as Aaron. Presley's parents went to great lengths to remove the double 'A' on his official birth certificate after his twin brother Jesse Garon was stillborn, Elvis Day: The Fanboy Advisor
  

• "Hours after Presley's death was announced, a man by the name of Jon Burrows (Presley's traveling alias) purchased a one way ticket with cash to Buenos Aires.""Is Elvis Alive?", which does not elaborate or give any source for this claim.
  

Two tabloid newspapers, the Weekly World News and The Sun, ran articles covering the continuing "life" of Presley after his death, in great detail, including a broken leg from a motorcycle accident, all the way up to his purported "real death" in the mid 1990s.fact However, since his "real death", the Weekly World News has continued to claim he is still alive, thus contradicting its initial story.

Both ETAs and the belief that Presley still lives figure into the story of Bubba Ho-tep, which features him living in a Texas nursing home after switching lives with an Elvis impersonator (Presley goes so far as to make a living "impersonating" himself). According to the movie, it was the impersonator who died in 1977, but the documentation of the switch was accidentally destroyed, preventing Presley from ever reclaiming his "real" life.

FBI files on Presley

As Presley was a very popular star, the FBI had files on him of more than 600 pages.See Thomas Fensch, The FBI Files on Elvis Presley (New Century Books, 2001). According to Thomas Fensch, the texts from the FBI reports dating from 1959 to 1981 represent a "microcosm of Presley's behind-the-scenes life." For instance, the FBI was interested in death threats made against the singer, the likelihood of Presley being the victim of blackmail and particularly a major extortion attempt while he was in the Army in Germany, complaints about his public performances, a paternity suit, the theft by larceny of an executive jet which he owned and the alleged fraud surrounding a 1955 Corvette which he owned, and similar things.

Discography

• For a detailed discography, see: Elvis Presley discography.
  
• For a list of Presley's singles, see: Elvis Presley hit singles.
  
• For a list of all of his songs, see: Alphabetical list of all of Elvis Presley's songs.
  

Trivia

Music

• Following an unsuccessful 1954 appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, Presley was allegedly told by one of the program's producers, "You ain't going nowhere, son. These were for the 1967 "How Great Thou Art" LP, for the 1972 LP, "He Touched Me" and, in 1974, for the song "How Great Thou Art" (live).
  
• Billboard historian Joel Whitburn declared Presley the "#1 act of the Rock era", beating out The Beatles, based upon his dominance of Billboard's list of top 100 singles artists since 1955.
  

Acting

• Presley made only one television commercial, an ad for Southern Maid Doughnuts that ran in 1954.
  
• On his third and final appearance (January 6, 1957) on the The Ed Sullivan Show, Sullivan was so impressed by Presley that he pointed to him and told the audience "This is a real decent, fine boy. However, it has also been said that Presley's manager orchestrated the compliment in exchange for permitting Presley to appear, after Sullivan had earlier publicly stated his refusal to allow Presley on his program.
  
• He was offered the lead role of Tony in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical West Side Story. Despite Presley's arguments that it would legitimize his acting career, "Colonel" Parker forced Presley to turn it down thinking that it was non-commercial. The film won ten Academy Awards including Best Picture.
  

Finances

• When Presley was drafted into the US Army in March 1958, his monthly pay went from $100,000 to $78.
  
• Presley's estate earns over 40 million dollars every year which is a record for a deceased entertainer.
  
• In 2006, and for the sixth year straight, Presley was named the richest deceased celebrity in www.Forbes.com. (see also preceeding section entitled, "Presley in the 21st Century")
  

Personal life

• Presley was an avid practitioner of Kenpo karate, studying under both legendary instructor Ed Parker and Parker's protégé Mike Stone. Presley was known to have attained at least a seventh-degree black belt in the martial art.
  

• Presley was distantly related to country singer June Carter Cash.citation needed
  
• Presley was an honorary member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
  

Hair

• His hair was a natural sandy brown but he dyed it jet black after filming "Love Me Tender."
  
• Cryolophosaurus was at one point nicknamed 'Elvisaurus' because of its head crest being similar to Presley's hairstyle.
  

Name

• His given middle name at birth was Aron;Elvis' middle name, is it Aron or Aaron?" (Technical problems with this page may make display impossible.) The page does not specify any source. however, Aaron was placed on his gravestone by his father because Presley preferred that biblical spelling and had legally changed it.fact Aaron is the official spelling used by his estate.
  
• A number of people the world over are named after Presley, many of them becoming quite well known themselves: Elvis Stojko, a Canadian who was the three-time World Figure Skating Champion;
  
• Musician Elvis Costello adopted Presley's first name a few months before Presley's death in 1977.
  
• The name Presley was anglicized from the German name Pressler during the American Civil War.
  

Legacy

• The 1960 Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie is a satire about the effects of the compulsory U.S. military draft on a famous singer similar to Presley.
  
• Freddie Mercury composed his 1979 song "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" as a memory of Presley.fact
  
• Kirsty MacColl's 1981 song "There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis" is a reference to all the unusual sightings in the United Kingdom of the singer.
  
• Presley had a short mention in the S.E Hinton classic, The Outsiders.
  
• The Broadway musical "All Shook Up" features the songs of Presley, and is based on the plot of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
  
• Wink Martindale, who was a close friend of Presley, aired a nationwide tribute in his memory following the news of his death. Martindale was an up-and-coming radio DJ in Memphis at the time Presley's career began to take off in high gear.
  
• Richard Dawson also paid tribute to Presley on an episode of Family Feud.
  
• The 2002 Disney animated feature Lilo and Stitch contains more Presley songs than there are in several movies in which Presley himself starred. Others in the top ten included, in ranking order, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Diana, Princess of Wales, Nelson Mandela, Isaac Newton and Queen Elizabeth I.
  
• The Chinese tend to nickname him The King of Cats (Traditional: ??, Simplified: ??, Pinyin:M?o Wáng) after the "hillbilly cat" remark in The Memphis Press Scimitar interview. (See:Devotion to his Mother)
  
• In Soul Calibur, the character Maxi bears a distinct resemblance to Presley and is a martial artist like him.
  
• In Shaman King, Ryunosuke Umemiya dresses up like Elvis Presley and is a big fan of him
  
• The cartoon character Johnny Bravo has a voice like that of Presley in addition to his resemblance to Presley's idol James Dean.
  

Likes and dislikes

• Presley was a big fan of Captain Marvel Jr, and may have styled his trademark haircut after that of the comic book character. In addition, Presley's stage outfits (with a half-cape similar to those worn by the Marvels) and his TCB logo (with a Marvel-esque lightning bolt insignia) may also show inspiration from Captain Marvel, Jr.
  
• He was proud of his role in King Creole because the part was originally offered to his idol James Dean.
  
• His favorite rollercoaster was the Zippin Pippin at Libertyland. He would rent out the park to himself just so he could ride it non-stop.
  
• His two favorite hobbies were known to be eating honey-roasted peanuts, and beating up those he deemed to be "squares" before his signing to a major record label.
  
• One of Presley's favorite female singers was Anne Murraycitation needed and he recorded a version of "Snowbird".
  
• One of his favorite songs was "Something" by George Harrison.fact
  
• His favorite film was "Dr Strangelove", he was a great fan of Peter Sellers.
  
• It is commonly known that Presley loved gospel music. Their record was on Presley's record player in his bedroom on the day he died.
  

Miscellaneous

• His death occurred only three days before that of Groucho Marx. The song ridicules those who contend that Presley is alive.
  
• Presley had a pet rabbit called Dean, after his idol James Dean.
  
• Is the object of affection by the fictional character Jesse from the hit sitcom Full House.
  
• The lead singer of the Led Zeppelin cover band, Dread Zeppelin is called Tortelvis and dresses like Presley did in the 1970s.
  
• Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is a longtime Presley fan who has released a CD of his favorite Presley songs with his own commentary, He also helped finance a statue of the music pioneer and made a historical visit to Graceland in June 2006 with United States President George W. Bush.
  
• In Robert Asprin's Phule's Company science-fiction novels, the character "Rev" is an ordained minister in the "Church of the King", which reveres a deified Presley.
  
• KGB Sky Show 31 at Qualcomm Stadium, one of the largest fireworks displays in the world was themed after Elvis. Ironically, it was the 50th year anniversary of Elvis' initial appearence on the Ed Sullivan Show.
  

See also

• Alphabetical list of all of Elvis Presley's songs
  
• Best-selling artist of all-time
  
• List of artists by total number of USA number one singles
  
• List of best-selling music artists
  
• List of songs about or referencing Elvis Presley
  
• List of actors who have played Elvis Presley
  
• Elvis impersonator
  
• Elvis sightings
  
• "Tagish" Elvis Presley
  
• 24 Hour Church of Elvis
  
• Elvis-A-Rama Museum
  
• Elvis and Me
  

Further reading

• Authors of important works on Presley include
  
  • Peter Guralnick ? named the Society of Professional Journalists' National Member of the Year in 1994, a year before her book on Presley was published.
    
  • Albert Goldman ? author of "Elvis and Gladys," called "Nothing less than the best Elvis book yet" by the Boston Globe and Kirkus Reviews, "The most fine-grained Elvis bio ever."
    
  • Michael T. The book examines the emergence of rock 'n' roll in a social and regional context.
    
  • Louis Cantor - "Dewey and Elvis - The Life and Times of a Rock 'n' Roll Deejay" by a professor emeritus of history at Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne who grew up in Memphis, Tennessee and attended high school with Presley. This book reproduces actual texts from numerous FBI reports dating from 1959 to 1981,which represent a "microcosm of Presley's behind-the-scenes life."
    

Notes